


Calm Before the Storm

by Laurasauras



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Beforus Ancestors, Canon Compliant, F/M, Hair Washing, Pale Romance | Moirallegiance, SGRUB (Homestuck), Wings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-30
Updated: 2020-04-30
Packaged: 2021-03-01 20:49:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,950
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23923381
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Laurasauras/pseuds/Laurasauras
Summary: Meenah has been away, finding out what it'll take to get out of the game. She returns to Rufioh, but it isn't anyfin searious.
Relationships: Rufioh Nitram & Meenah Peixes, Rufioh Nitram/Meenah Peixes
Comments: 2
Kudos: 20





	Calm Before the Storm

**Author's Note:**

> Commissioned by Anonymous, I hope you like it!

It’s a normal day on Rufioh’s land. It’s always sunny, always warm. The trees resemble the ones he left back on Beforus, except he doesn’t have a tribe of Lost Weeaboos around him. He misses the noise of chatting and playing, the easy leadership that came with him being the best at crowing and knowing which troll anime was objectively good, but he doesn’t want company right now. 

Trolls just aren’t made to hang out with eleven others and nobody else except monsters for three sweeps. 

So when he gets a message from Meenah, he lets it sit for a little while, carefully not opening past the preview so he can pretend he hasn’t seen it. It’s been ages since he saw her, and he wants to see her again real bad, but if she saw him like this, all maudlin and pathetic, she’d turn right back where she came from.

curuleChrysophilist [CC] has begun pestering agersicTyphoon [AT]  


CC: hey ruf  
AT: woah, meenah...  
AT: 1t’s been ages, doll.  
CC: yeah i know i know you cant live without me  
CC: be embarrassing buoy  
CC: aint got time to be dealin with all this worship  
CC: i know thats already got ship in it but its still a pun  
AT: ahaha, okay...  
AT: 1 don’t know about worsh1p, but 1 did m1ss you.  
AT: where you been?  
CC: you know me  
CC: gotsta have the open sea  
CC: listfin are you around?  
CC: i know ship be all kinds of chaos where you at  
AT: 1t’s not too bad r1ght now...  
AT: damz seems to be cool1ng off...  
CC: a beach goes on a fact finding fishion for a glubbin perigee and things get all clam and fluffy holy mackerel  
CC: waterever its probs for the best right now  
CC: your land or mine nitram  
AT: yours gives me a headache ahaha...  
CC: well you got barely any gold but i aint holdin that against you  
CC: nobody should have more than me anemonewave  
CC: be there soon  


curuleChrysophilist [CC] has ceased pestering agersicTyphoon [AT]  


Rufioh gets himself out of his custom made hammock and stretches his shoulders out. He sucks in his breath so that he can ascend from his hideaway. The hollow in the tree is _exactly_ his size, so he only needs to exhale to be pushed up and out of it. 

Once in the air, he opens his wings and glides back to his hive, which is ostensibly where he still lives. A boy’s gotta have his own space though, and he’s not gonna tell even Meenah where his is. Maybe _especially_ Meenah, if it weren’t actually especially everyone else. 

She lands heavily outside his door, takes off her jetpack and lets it land with a thunk. Rufioh winces as the propellor hits the ground, hoping it’s not dented again. Regular jetpacks are expensive enough, solid gold jetpacks in the shape of a boat’s motor are... well, if it keeps her happy.

She looks the same, if a little bit bedraggled, which is somehow surprising. She’s short, always behind the warmbloods in moults, but fierceness is written in every line of her body. She definitely hasn’t stopped at her hive to freshen herself up and that gives Rufioh feelings he thought he was long over. 

“Nitram,” she says, tilting her chin up in a sharp nod. “Sup, suckerfish?” 

“Not much, doll, not much.”

He’s never really sure where he stands with her. If he goes over and tries to give her a hug, she’ll probably wriggle out of it and insult him. But if she _wants_ a hug, she’s not going to ask for it herself.

He sidles up to her as coolly as he can and holds his fist up and close to his own shoulder. She bumps the side of it with the side of her own fist, then punches him three times for good measure. 

“It’s been a perigee and that’s how you greet me? Buoy, what the shell?!”

Rufioh smiles and wraps his arms around her cool waist. When she doesn’t shove him away, he lifts her up and hugs her tight to his chest. She smells like salt water, but her braids aren’t wet against his forearm and her wetsuit is dry. She laughs and finally gets wriggly, knocking a horn carelessly against his. He puts her down carefully despite the reverberation aching down to his skull. He can feel it in his teeth, but it doesn’t remotely blunt his happiness at seeing her. 

“Where you been, doll?” he asks. Again.

“Around,” she grins. “Water you my keeper now?”

“It been a perigee,” he says, echoing her. “Aranea didn’t even know where you went.”

“You ask after me?”

“Yeah...”

She pushes past him, even though there’s plenty of room, and drops suggestively into a pile of cards, host plushies, basketballs and skateboards. She pats a spot next to her and waggles her eyebrows.

“Ahaha, I don’t know,” Rufio says, hand going to the back of his neck.

“Don’t play tsundere with me, nerd,” Meenah says. “I ain’t seen anyone in forever, I came to you first, doesn’t that mean anyfin?”

It does. Rufioh has been approached by a fair few of their friends—okay, all of their friends—exclusively in the flushed quadrant. He’s too mild to provoke a rivalry or need conciliation, and as the _pacifier_ in something pale or ashen he’d probably tell his partner that they knew best and let them get on with it. He’s pretty go-with-the-flow.

And it’s not that things are different with Meenah, he’s still the same guy, but just because he’s bad at moirallegience doesn’t mean he doesn’t have feelings. And it seemed for a while that she might too, that he was more than just the guy she hated the least. But then she left, and it’s been nine weeks. 

He sits down anyway. Her shark-like grin falters just a tiny bit as he steps towards her, like she’s unsure if he’s really going to come. It’s moments like that, moments she doesn’t want him or anyone to see, that paradoxically make him unable to look away. He sits shoulder to shoulder with her, tilting his head so that he can tuck his horns behind her head. The pile is reassuringly textured with lumps and angles that translate to proper comfort on troll skin.

“Why are you here, Meenah?” he asks. 

“‘Cause you’re my guy, Ruf,” she says. “Water you crazy? I been on a hellsa sea-cret fishion, you think I want to go listfin to Serket carp on at me about every sextant I missed?”

“Sextant?”

“It’s a navigational device that sounds like second, Ruf. I’m nautical as shit, kelp me out here.”

Rufioh sighs. Meenah’s smile drops just an pixel again. Even though he should be glad that she’s being vulnerable, he can’t. He can’t give her that second of discomfort in order to help her get her issues off her chest. He’ll never get a real moirail, he’s just not cut out for it.

“So things have been pretty crazy...” he says. Her smile restores itself and she shifts a bit closer, hugging his arm to her. His pump biscuit stutters in its rhythm. He’s got it _bad_ and apparently no amount of feeling abandoned has cured him of it. “I been mediating some, trying to talk Damz around. She crazy, doll. But she’s a sweetheart under all that and I finally convinced Horuss to keep to himself for a little while, you know, till it don’t hurt so much.”

Meenah stops smiling, but nods. Her own brand of mediation there was _not_ helping matters, but he’s sure she meant well. That or she wants Damara to hate her real bad.

“Horuss is good. My boy’s getting his creative on, all about cultivating those interests ahaha. He’s never gonna be popular, but at least he’s not Cronus. He got worse while you were away... I think, anyway, it’s hard to tell because he was so shit anyway, damn.

“And, oh, I don’t know if you knew this, Tula and Porrim had a thing goin’ on. Was a total trainwreck, wow, Tula ain’t cut out for blackrom. She and Tuna held on through it, so that’s something... Weird that they’re the most solid couple around.”

“You get any new loot?” she demands. She’s never really had the patience to hear about the social side of their adventures. “Krill anythin’ bigger than an ogre? Anyone make it to their quest cocoon?”

“Uh...” Rufio is kind of trapped into looking at her with their horns like this. He averts his eyes, but he can’t move his head without it being really obvious. “Nah, doll, we been keeping it cosy...”

“It’s been nearly three sweeps,” Meenah says. “We shoulda won this beach ages ago.”

“That what you been up to? Finding us a way out?”

Meenah _can_ look down. She lets go of his arm and shrugs. He can’t let this one go though. 

“C’mon, Meenah. That’s important...”

She shrugs again. 

“Aranea been saying some crazy shit. That we ain’t gonna win. She’s supposed to be our guide, yo. I think she’s hurt ‘cause no one likes her, ‘specially with you gone. She’s not right, is she?”

“Moby. I ‘unno, I think I got us a way out. Waterever, we got time. I just gotta train these guppies up, savin’ it for a last resort.”

Rufioh frowns. It’s not like Meenah to hesitate on anything. Whatever her last resort is, he’s torn between thinking he should know and really not wanting to. He also hates how Meenah looks right now, her hair salt-rough and tangled, her eyes downcast and her arms around her waist.

“I got a new Fiduspawn expansion,” he says, hoping a change of subject might cheer her up. “Alchemised it myself, out of one of my old ones and a water propulsion shoe, it’s something you’d love!”

She snorts and shakes her head, still not looking at him. Where’s the girl who can steamroll him into anything? He misses her and she’s right next to him.

He licks his dry lips and wonders if he has the nerve to ask her... She obviously needs comfort right now, but she never wants to feel weak, not ever. He lets her pretend to be strong even when she feels fragile, and she feels safe enough with him to let the act just slightly dip. That doesn’t mean that she has ever really admitted she needs him.

“Your hair is dank, doll. Let me wash it for you.”

She stiffens immediately, as he knew she would. She does look at him again though.

“What,” she asks, voice flat.

“You our empress, Meens. You probubbly don’t even know how to wash your hair.”

“Probubbly!” she repeats, instantly appeased. “A’right, Ruf, you can give it a go.”

He pulls her up by her hand and takes her to his ablution block. His hive is really a treehouse, but he’s made some upgrades since Latula ripped his load gaper from it and his ablution block is nice. His ablution trap finally accommodates his wings, just like his doorways now do. He used to have to squat awkwardly through them; folding his wings together isn’t an issue but he can’t make them shorter without straining against how they want to be.

He sits them on the edge of the trap and picks up her long hair to untangle it. Her hair is dry, full of split ends and frizzing out of the confines of her braids. The band at the bottom of each braid comes off relatively easy, but the hair starts to pull and snap from the first row of twists. He’s going to have to take his time. 

Sometimes he pokes his claws through the knots to ease them open, other times he follow the tangles to the end as if he’s working with rope or string. Her hair stays kinked in the same pattern, wildly curly and held rigidly together. He decides to wait until he’s washing it to deal with that. 

She starts to chat about where she’s been as he works, which is a bonus Rufioh wasn’t expecting. He listens and occasionally reacts, but mostly he lets her talk.

“There’s all sortsa books and legends, ship we’ve looked at before but most of it’s _deeper._ I been on every land, divin’ into oceans and findin’ lost cities where the imps can’t follow. I tried to talk to your denizen, but couldn’t understand a glubbing word. Mine had some carp to say, we got an agreement now an’ I can just mosey up anytime I want.”

“That’s crazy!”

“I got all the levels, Ruf, all except god tier now. I can take an ogre down with my eyes closed.”

“Bangarang!”

“Yeah, but I don’t got the guts to off myshelf. Disgraceful, what it is.”

“It’s a big ask, doll. I’ll get you to your cocoon if you come by it some other way, promise.”

She turns and cups his face gently, stroking his face in something _so close_ to a pap it makes him shiver. The next moment she’s facing away again, telling him about all the loot she picked up.

She lies down in his trap, feet high on his wall and still fully clothed so that just her head is below the tap. She closes her eyes as he wets every last inch of her hair and then guides her back up to sitting so that he can use bubbling cleaning cream on it. His stuff is good quality, he loves his ‘hawk, but he doesn’t even think about how much he’s massaging into her scalp, still careful not to pull her hair that’s all clumped together.

He rinses and applies smoothing cream, and finally he can run his fingers through her hair with minimal discomfort. In fact, she starts to purr, her eyes still closed and a small smile on her face. He loves her massive grin, but this smile is precious. 

She doesn’t seem aware of her purrs until he is alternating between squeezing her hair between a folded drying plane and combing through it. Her eyes open and she turns sharply to face him, her purrs guttering self consciously to a stop. 

“I wasn’t purring,” she says.

“I don’t mind—”

“I _wasn’t_ purring.”

Rufioh looks down at his knees and tries to control his expression. Of course she isn’t comfortable with that kind of vulnerability. He’s not any kind of pale lover.

“Ruf...” she says.

“I don’t mind,” he says, shrugging. He swallows and looks back up at her, attempting his usual easy smile. “Honest, doll.”

Meenah frowns, her eyes flicking around her face as she takes him in. He doesn’t know what she’s seeing. 

“Ruf, you _do_ mind. You can tell me you care. You can tell me to be honest. You don’t have to let me walk all over you and then smile at me.”

Rufioh shrugs again. Meenah continues to look concerned, right until she grabs his wrist and pulls him into the trap with her.

“Hey!” His wings soften the fall and awkwardly twitch until he straightens enough to give them room. “Not... cool...”

He trails off as Meenah pulls him closer, into her cool arms. She strokes his cheek again, bites her lip uncertainly, then folds her fingers into a loose fist and uses the backs of them.

He’s too surprised to purr immediately, but she does it again, and again, becoming more confident and heavy lidded in relaxed security. When he does start purring, she smiles with half her mouth and keeps going. 

He reaches for her, but she grabs his wrist.

“Shh. Lemme take care’a you.”

His hand drops to her waist instead. He inches closer, mindful of his horns and wings. It’s only a slightly awkward position and he’d tolerate just about anything to be right where he is. 

Her eyes go to his wings and she traces the outline of one, making him shiver. 

“These sensitive?” she asks.

“Yeah... You can touch, just... gentle...”

She guides him more upright and away from her so she can drag her knuckles down the centre folds where his wings connect to his back, careful at first and then with more pressure. He groans as his muscles tense and then relax. 

“Good?” she checks. 

“Yeah,” he says, kind of amazed she’s checking in. “I can’t reach. They’re damn tight.”

She leans in and presses a kiss just above her knuckles. Her lips are vibrating gently with her purrs. Rufioh makes an involuntary chirr. 

“You’re an easy touch, Ruf,” she says. “A beach got no experience here and I’m makin’ you melt.”

“People like me, just flushed.”

“Pff, dumb landies. You’re not even that hot.”

She starts touching his wings again before he can reply, and his head lolls forward.

“I dunno if I want this to be a thing,” she mumbles. “I don’t _do_ quadrants.”

“I get it,” he says. If the last sweep has been any indication, she’ll come around again and jump in a pile with him even if she says it’s not a formal moirallegience. It’s still disappointing, but why would he push someone into being in a relationship they don’t want? “But I care. You said I could say that... I care about you, Meenah.”

She pauses, but then keeps stroking his wings. 

“I shoulda krilled you before I cared,” she says. “Try and get yourshelf to that cocoon anywave, okay? Even if I can’t kelp. Want you strong.”

Rufioh nods, but he isn’t that brave. And no one’s likely to take him out, or even hurt him, either.


End file.
